Characterization of Fecal Microbiota across Seven Chinese Ethnic Groups by Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction

Abstract

The human gut microbiota consists of complex microbial communities, which possibly play crucial roles in physiological functioning and health maintenance. China has evolved into a multicultural society consisting of the major ethnic group, Han, and 55 official ethnic minority groups. Nowadays, these minority groups inhabit in different Chinese provinces and some of them still keep their unique culture and lifestyle. Currently, only limited data are available on the gut microbiota of these Chinese ethnic groups. In this study, 10 major fecal bacterial groups of 314 healthy individuals from 7 Chinese ethnic origins were enumerated by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Our data confirmed that the selected bacterial groups were common to all 7 surveyed ethnicities, but the amount of the individual bacterial groups varied to different degree. By principal component and canonical variate analyses of the 314 individuals or the 91 Han subjects, no distinct group clustering pattern was observed. Nevertheless, weak differences were noted between the Han and Zhuang from other ethnic minority groups, and between the Heilongjiang Hans from those of the other provinces. Thus, our results suggest that the ethnic origin may contribute to shaping the human gut microbiota.

Ethnic Differences Shape the Alpha but Not Beta Diversity of Gut Microbiota from School Children in the Absence of Environmental Differences

“…Dietary intake is also an important factor affecting the composition of gut microbiota. Food components that are indigestible for human enzymes provide substrates for intestinal microbial metabolism [32]. In the present study, dietary structure was not significantly different across ethnic groups, although consumption of fruits, seafood, vegetables, and poultry meat were significantly different.…”

“…In the present study, Firmicutes (47.61%), Bacteroidetes (38.05%), and Proteobacteria (6.80%) represented 92.46% of the sequences. The relative proportions of Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes are reportedly influenced by many factors [32,33]. The intestinal microbes and host form a symbiotic, long-term relationship early in human development.…”

Asian gut microbiome

“…China is a multicultural society consisting of the major ethnic group Han, and 55 official ethnic minority groups spreading across a large geographical area. Nevertheless, Bacteroides (BB-type) is the common predominate GI bacteria among all 7 surveyed ethnicities, Bacteroides being highest among the Zhuang (Southern cities Baise and Nanning) and lowest among the Mongolian [5,6]. Prevotella is comparable among all the ethnicity studied, but up to 10-fold lower than the counts of Bacteroides.…”

Molecular identification and quantification of lactic acid bacteria in traditional fermented dairy foods of Russia

“…Quantitative PCR was performed in an ABI Step-One detection system (Applied Biosystems, Carlsbad, CA) using SYBR Premix Ex TaqII kits (TaKaRa Bio Inc.). The amplification reaction mixture and program were prepared as reported previously (Kwok et al, 2014). Corresponding type strains and Bifidobacterium breve ATCC 15700 were used for standard curve construction, the coefficient of determination (R 2 ) values of qPCR were greater than 0.99, and the efficiency value ranged from 95.5 to 102.1%.…”